Definitely understand the you get what you pay for point, but when the budget creeps into four digit territory, it starts to seem less reasonable to me-- kids' college, mortgage, retirement.... Its a matter of balancing personal priorities I suppose. Trying to find the best compromise...

If I don't recode, how much normalization can be expected with the bass and treble controls? My primary disatisfaction with the base system isnt volume, as it gets reasonably loud, its the fact that the music sounds "thin" if that makes any sense, and distorts at volume.